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A review by elerireads
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Well I'm reeling a bit from this. Complicated, bizarre and confusing, but utterly brilliant. Such a rich and complex afterlife lore and politics. Deeply flawed but wonderfully loving main character with strong convictions and sense of purpose. Full of bitingly dark humour, raging at the futility of war and ultimately a kind of optimism underneath it all. And of course, the mystery that keeps you hanging right to the very end (at least for me - I didn't work it out!) but you can't get any joy out of its resolution because it's just so bloody depressing and pointless. A real rollercoaster, and I found those last 60 odd pages pretty difficult to get through because it was just so intense.
A few misc. thoughts:
- Apparently this was a rewrite intended to be more accessible to non Sri Lankan readers. I wonder what the original was like because this was still confusing and I had to google lots of things. Might be worth having a pen and paper to write down who all the different groups are. As far as I can tell though, it doesn't much matter if you can't completely keep track because it's not really about their specific causes anyway.
- Interesting how Maali kept referring to DD's environmentalism as naïve when Maali is by far the most naïve character in the book, genuinely believing that his photographs could change the course of the war.
- I got lulled into such a false sense of security over his sexuality. Don't want to spoil it but bloody hell.
- I absolutely would not have picked this book for myself, even though the cover is absolutely gorgeous. Too much (at least superficial) resemblance to The Lovely Bones. So credit to my sister for knowing my taste better than I do and giving this to me for Christmas.
A few misc. thoughts:
- Apparently this was a rewrite intended to be more accessible to non Sri Lankan readers. I wonder what the original was like because this was still confusing and I had to google lots of things. Might be worth having a pen and paper to write down who all the different groups are. As far as I can tell though, it doesn't much matter if you can't completely keep track because it's not really about their specific causes anyway.
- Interesting how Maali kept referring to DD's environmentalism as naïve when Maali is by far the most naïve character in the book, genuinely believing that his photographs could change the course of the war.
- I got lulled into such a false sense of security over his sexuality. Don't want to spoil it but bloody hell.
- I absolutely would not have picked this book for myself, even though the cover is absolutely gorgeous. Too much (at least superficial) resemblance to The Lovely Bones. So credit to my sister for knowing my taste better than I do and giving this to me for Christmas.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Death, Homophobia, Murder, Gore, Violence, War, and Torture